Summary
- Luffy, after awakening his Devil Fruit and reaching Gear 5, gained a ton of power but still falls short against fighters from the Dragon Ball universe.
- The power scaling in One Piece differs vastly from Dragon Ball, making Luffy’s power insufficient in the latter.
- Luffy’s unique abilities and connections to the toon-force aren’t enough to match the speed and strength of Dragon Ball characters.
Luffy is the main character of One Piece and has officially entered the ranks of one of the series’ most powerful characters after the awakening of his Devil Fruit, which led to his fabled Gear 5 form. With a simple power-up, he was able to make short work of Kaido, who is known as the strongest creature on Earth. Because of this, many believe that Luffy would stand a fair chance in the world of Dragon Ball.
While Dragon Ball has clearly had a significant influence on all Shonen anime series that have been released after it, One Piece is one such franchise that takes a lot from its predecessor, despite both series being vastly different. In this article, let’s see how power scaling works in relation to two such series and see how well Luffy would do if he was thrown into the Dragon Ball universe.
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Luffy At His Strongest vs. Dragon Ball
How Well Would Luffy Do?
|
Dragon Ball Debut |
Episode 1, “The Secret of the Dragon Balls” |
|---|---|
|
Date |
February 26, 1986 |
|
One Piece Debut |
Episode 1, “I’m Luffy! The Man Who Will Become the Pirate King!” |
|
Date |
October 20, 1999 |
In his Sun God Nika form, Luffy is an incredibly powerful combatant who hasn’t been shown to be in a lot of trouble in any of his battles so far. While he has only used this form on Wano and Egghead, it can be argued that he hasn’t really faced much adversity, although he had trouble damaging the Yokai form of St. Saturn. However, despite being unable to significantly damage him, he still managed to do quite well against the Elder.
However, the main point of contention is the fact that the power scaling between both of these series is just vastly different. For starters, Luffy’s most powerful attack that has been shown so far is the massive Bajrang Gun that he used to defeat Kaido. By using the strange powers of his Devil Fruit, he inflated his fist to the size of Onigashima and struck Kaido through to the base of Old Wano. While this was undoubtedly Luffy’s strongest showing, it still wasn’t the greatest feat in his own universe.
I want to create the world where my friends can eat as much as they want!
This is the biggest problem when it comes to pitting someone from One Piece specifically to the level of characters in Dragon Ball. Even someone like Raditz, who is one of the weakest characters in the franchise, was powerful enough to destroy entire planets with relative ease if he wanted to. In fact, Master Roshi even destroyed the moon in the original series, showing that the power scaling of characters in this series is just different.
The main strength that Luffy would have against anyone from Dragon Ball would likely be his ability to turn anything into rubber, which he was shown to do against Kaido when he grabbed a bolt of lightning and threw it at his foe. Moreover, many argue that in his Gear 5 state, Luffy essentially has the toon-force, which allows him to do whatever he wants, including altering his size and even turning powerful opponents like Saturn into Frisbees.
However, even then, the power difference is far too great. More than just the sheer strength of the Dragon Ball characters, their speed is also too much for Luffy to handle in any state. Goku can teleport in an instant, while most characters post-Z tend to have entire battles at the speed of light. So, Luffy getting past anyone after Raditz is highly improbable to think about.
All in all, even in his most powerful form, Luffy would very likely be stopped by Master Roshi during the 21st Budokai Tenkaichi Tournament from the original Dragon Ball, since his feat of blowing up the moon are vastly superior to anything Luffy has ever done. It could be argued that Luffy could scrape by in this battle but would immediately be put down by King Piccolo and, consequently, anything from Z onwards, showing how powerful Dragon Ball characters truly are.
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Why Is This The Case For Luffy?
A Difference In Stories
The truth of the matter is that One Piece is not a series that puts as much of an emphasis on strength and fighting as Dragon Ball does. While both undoubtedly fall under the Shonen classification, Dragon Ball is clearly more focused on battle while One Piece has its true strength in world-building and lore. Although there is a massive focus on strength within the confines of the series itself and the need to get stronger has always been stated, it has never been the main focus of the story like it has been for Dragon Ball.
At this point in the story, Luffy could beat just about every other pirate or Marine, but if he were in Dragon Ball, he wouldn’t even make it past the 21st Budokai Tenkaichi Tournament. However, he doesn’t need to, since his story and Goku’s story both fill a certain niche and there is no franchise better than One Piece or Dragon Ball when it comes to representing that respective niche in the first place.
One Piece and Dragon Ball can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
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Dragon Ball
- Created by
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Akira Toriyama
- First TV Show
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Dragon Ball